Tuesday March 10, 2009

I've Been Thinking:

New Palestinian polls are out and as was predicted, Hamas is doing very well.

The outcome of a face-to-face poll of 1,270 people conducted between
March 5-7 on how they would vote if a presidential election were held today:
47% would vote for Ismael Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas
45% would vote for Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah and current president of the PA.

Recent polls show that since the last poll were conducted, Hamas is gaining in popularity.
As a party, Hamas went up from 33 % from 28%.
Fatah still remains the largest party but fell in numbers from 42% to 40%.

Everyone is dwarfed by a non candidate.
Marwan Barghouti, now in an Israeli prison, would get 61% of the Palestinian vote if he were to run for president.

Hamas gained in strength in the West Bank where Fatah is in control but has diminished their strength in Gaza where they are in control.

What does this all mean?
It means that it is very dangerous for Israel and the West to continue pursuing their policy of courting Abbas.
If Palestinian elections had been held as originally scheduled on January 10th, Abbas would probably have emerged as the minority leader.

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